16) Basements, Bats and Vitruvian Men

“I didn’t hear anything last night… so… I’m assuming there weren’t any…”

“I (stressing the I) did not see any bats… but I don’t know about Jackie or the kids…” said David.

You were still in bed rubbing the back of your neck, your shoulder still sore from before the move… you had pulled something picking up a box a week or two before you closed on the house and you hadn’t thought too much of it then, but three weeks in and no better… you were starting to think about it.

“What’s the game plan today?” You ask David.

“The dumpster is coming tomorrow so I want to start getting some more demo work in…”

“Ok… I know Jackie had said that she was going to give you a hand with that… so if it’s alright with you, I’m going to work on cleaning up the rest of this place.”

“Works for me.” David gives you a quick kiss and then heads downstairs to get the kids breakfast.

You hop out of bed to take a shower, with no air conditioning, massive western windows and an “unusually hot stretch of weather (all the locals have told you),” you don’t even care that you’ll be filthy within the next hour, you just want to cool off.

You are surprised by just how hot it is, and how hot it’s getting in the church from the ground floor up. Something that you had never even considered when buying the place was the window situation. Yeah… you knew that some of them were damaged and needed replacing, some were altogether missing, and most of the rest of them were pretty old… but what you hadn’t even stopped to consider was that very few of them were actually capable of opening. And even a good chunk of the ones that were able to open, were in such rough shape that even attempting to do so was going to be way more dicey than any of you were comfortable with.

It was HOT. You tell yourself though that it’s not going to last… that you are NOT going to break down and buy a big noisy floor unit with the big window hose… and that you were most definitely NOT going to break down and buy a mini split… you could tough this one out… but when you step out of the shower and begin to dress, already sweating… you’re no longer that convinced about what you are most definitely NOT going to do.

“Hey did you see the plants outside in the planters?” You ask David when you bring down the dishes from breakfast into the kitchen. You had walked through the backyard with the dishes to avoid the basement that morning when you noticed the well planted garden.

You have been eating in the sanctuary upstairs on the ground floor, a plastic folding table and some random mismatched chairs. The kids’ beds at the far other end. Jackie had put Beverly’s together yesterday, but you were still waiting on the boys’ new loft beds to come in. It was a bit of a hike from the sanctuary to the kitchen.

David chuckles… “Uh… yeah… I noticed them first thing…”

You’re laughing now. “So did the neighbors say anything about them then?”

“Yeah. They asked if I’d give them a couple of days to dig all their plants out of the garden…”

The property had been vacant for nearly a decade and the neighbors had taken advantage of the empty planters, growing tomatoes, green beans, Concord grapes (that we hadn’t quite noticed yet), peppers, fruitless strawberry plants, squash (that wasn’t doing all that well), an iffy zucchini plant, and an assortment of beautiful flowers… But we assumed that none of that was what the neighbors were really concerned with, the neighbors were concerned with their prized crop: a half dozen massive cannabis bushes at least six feet tall with only a month left before harvest… they’re legal to cultivate here and the neighbors had taken full advantage.

You’re laughing at that… you know that they’re freaked out that you’re just going to Christopher Columbus that shit… “Sorry boys, it’s my land now which means everything on it is MINE and it looks like you’re shit-otta-luck. You did a fine job with the cannabis, by the way… looks lovely… (oh yeah and here’s small pox. You’re welcome.).” But you and David both know that’s not how either of you roll.

“And… what did you tell them?” You ask David.

“I told them that they are more than welcome to continue using their garden and accessing the property to do so, so long as they are respectful of us and our belongings, that we would most definitely NOT touch ANY of their plants, but also that we would be putting a fence up towards the end of the growing season, and utilizing our planters next season…”

“I’m sure they were happy with that then?” You ask.

“I mean yeah…”

“If we were assholes we could have had us some nice plants…” you joke, both of you laughing (later that day one of the neighbors catches you outside, you compliment his garden and he asks you if he can keep mowing the lawn because he’s always done it and he really enjoys doing so - you’re really glad that you’re not assholes… and you take him up on it… on account of everything else you’ve got going on).

Jackie walks into the kitchen as the two of you are laughing abou the ‘secret garden’ outside… “Hey I’m gonna get started on the basement…”

“Ok,” David says, “I’m heading in there too.”

They both put on their masks in there from the day before, safety goggles and gloves… you peek in before closing the kitchen door behind them… “It’s not TOO bad…” you try to convince yourself… but it seems like the more moldy junk David and Jackie pull out… the more they find needs to be pulled out.

Each time you’ll get a text, or a phone call… “Hey Vaness… (they always leave the ‘a’ off the end of your name when something fucked up is afoot) can you come check something out real quick…”

And you’ll stop what you’re doing and head into the basement where they’ll point out what they’ve been doing… them playing the role of contractor and assistant, and you playing the role of homeowner… David showing you the latest bit of bullshit… more mold of course… and how… ‘he’s thinking…” he says… “that they’re going to have to pull more out…” and “what do you think of that?” As if you have the choice to say… “yeah ya know what… naw… leave the mold… I’m good…”

And you shrug your shoulders, “well I guess it’s gotta fucking go then…”

“Ok…” he says… and Jackie shrugs, her face expressionless behind the face mask and her and David start pulling even more shit off the walls.

The latest now is that not only has all the drywall come down on the south wall of the basement (and it’s not looking so hot under there), but that the north wall’s drywall is looking pretty sketch at best, and should probably be fucked with… and upon fucking with… it’s been determined that the wall itself is so damaged, that the firring strips are barely holding the drywall up. So David and Jackie go to work, tearing at the wall…

They’re pulling it from the old plaster wall when it all starts to give way… “Mr Gorbachev… tear down that wall…” but no one laughs when you make the dumb joke and maybe that’s because it was a dumb reference or maybe it’s that they’re trying not to be crushed by a massive wall that’s being torn from the firring strips… David climbs into the framing around the window so that when the wall is finally freed from the strips, it will fall neatly around him. Jackie stands well out of the way to the side.

David tells you that you should film this because it’s going to look awesome when the whole wall crashes down and you pull out your phone, ready for the awesome footage but as Jackie and David tug on the wall it gets stuck on something before it can get the momentum to topple and they tug and pull and eventually you loose interest and go back upstairs to keep cleaning… this place is so big… and absolutely filthy from sitting empty so long.

You had started in the foyer… that had been what you always pictured right from the beginning when you knew that you had to have this place… you pictured yourself in the foyer sweeping the cool gray slate stone before washing it with warm water and a mop… you imagined yourself lovingly wiping each and every single pain of old stained glass… you would love to put a beautiful oriental rug in the entryway and a crystal chandelier…

But now standing there… you realize that this is going to be a bit more involved than “a quick sweeping and mop”… Right by the door there are some deep and thick holes between the stones. They look as if they have been eroding for years. The grout will have to be filled in… a good bit of concrete will have to be poured first, and then the dust… so much dust… but it’s thick and heavy and when you wipe it with a rag it takes more than a little wipe… it takes multiple scrubs and multiple buckets of water… which is a bit of a chore considering that the only water source is the bathroom sink up two flights of stairs.

The crystal chandelier and oriental rug aren’t going in any time soon.

You get to work gently wiping each pane of light yellow colored glass… it feels paper thin between old geometric diamond leading… a few panes long ago broken and replaced (you later realized not with glass, but rather plexiglass and black construction caulk to mimic the leading). You let EVERYONE know that no one is to EVER touch this stained glass but you… and considering how delicate it is and what an absolute bitch it is to clean… no one seems to mind.

When you finish the inside, you head outside to finish cleaning the exterior, David and Jackie were done in the basement…and you take a break to see what they finished up for the day… the south wall has been taken down and all the drywall has been removed from all of the walls, you and David discuss removing the studs as they’re not looking so hot either (a very common theme you’re beginning to realize…) - a bunch of it covered in mold and the most nails that David and Jackie have ever seen put into boards. You’re bummed about having to tear out all the framing too… you ask about saving the studs… maybe you can remove the nails and reuse the good pieces…?

“Vaness… (there’s that no ‘a’ thing again)… the amount of time that you’re going to spend removing all the nails would probably be much better spent doing something else…”

“Oh come on… every penny counts… humor me?”

David rolls his eyes and sighs loudly… “Where am I putting it all?”

“Put it right here and I’ll work on the nails later…” and so David and Jackie ripped out all the framing, put it into a big pile in the middle of the basement, and a week later you quietly admit after tearing out a handful of nails that took you damn near forever, that you could indeed use your time a lot better than removing an absolutely ludicrous amount of nails from questionable studs and you and your boys drag the abandoned project out to the second dumpster…

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“You still happy we did this?” You later ask David as the two of you lay face up on the bed in the dark like a pair of underwear-ed Vitruvian men, a box fan in the window, an oscillating fan by the side of the bed… neither of you can seem to cool down… the hot west summer sun baked the room over the course of the day… and now you were having difficulty falling asleep in the heat…

“What do you mean?” He asks…

“I mean the basement is a lot fucking worse than we were expecting… I’m honestly a bit nervous about it… and… like are you still happy that we did this, that we came here?”

“Of course I am still happy we did this,” you can’t see him clearly in the dark but you can see that he’s turned his face from the ceiling to you… “The basement is… whatever… we’re just going to be a little longer… but it’s fine… yes… I’m still very happy we did this…”

“We’re not nuts?”

He sighs… “No… I mean well maybe to some people this is nuts… but we’re not some people and this is fine. Yes I’m still happy… and no I am not freaked out about the basement…”

You’re still staring up at the ceiling… you can barely make out the sweeping curves of the old oak planks in the dark… they’re breathtaking in the daytime, especially the late afternoon sun.

“I mean like… this went from little to… keeps getting bigger and…”

“Vaness… it’s fine. I’ve never been more sure of anything… outside of you…”

You feel a little better… not that the basement isn’t shaping up to be a disaster, but David’s unwavering steadfastness is calming and you turn to him… “Well good… at least I know an electrician…” You joke on account of him being an electrical contractor…

“Well THAT’s gonna cost you…” and you know that even without seeing his face, he’s grinning.

“When it’s not 86 degrees in here… we can talk about compensation… I love you. Goodnight.”

Despite the heat, you sleep well knowing that this man is all in… and that’s really half the battle.

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And even the next morning when you wake up face down in your underwear covered in sweat, you’re actually still happy you did this too. You could do without the 86 degree temperatures inside and the fucked up basement…

“Did you see the bats…?” David wants to know interrupting your thoughts as he walks through the door…

“What? Bats? As in bat with an ‘s’ plural?” you ask.

“Yeah… look…”

David has just walked into the bedroom, he had gone downstairs to grab his morning glass of water, and now he’s got on thick gloves and is holding a big clear Tupperware container with two small bats inside…

“What the fuck? Why… what?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t hear anything… the cats were going nuts and there wasn’t one… but two bats… I caught them under trash cans and it was so late and I was so tired that I just left them… instead of falling down the stairs… and then I went into the kitchen when I grabbed my water, found a Tupperware container and I’m going to take them outside now…”

You look at the two winged mammals in the clear plastic container. They’re both pressed up against the clear plastic walls of the container, one across from the other… and the ever so slightly larger of the two is standing up on its little bat legs and making a high pitched chirp… he sounds furious… the other bat was huddled in a ball… the larger bat seemed to be taking all of his frustration out on the smaller bat, berating him for some unknown folly…

You picture the bigger bat sarcastically sneering at the little one… “You still happy that we did this???? Are you still happy that we came here??? Now look at us… and did you get a load of the fucking basement??? You think that this was worth it…???”

“Hey,” you say to David, snapping out of your imaginary bat conversation… “we gotta figure out how these fucking bats are getting in here… this is getting a little out of hand…”

And he agreed then went downstairs to free them from their Tupperware prison. You could still hear the big bat screaming at the little one until they all got down to the foyer and you heard the front door open with a big swing and a woosh of cool morning air.

You can see the arched entryway with the stained glass. When we cleared out the overgrown shrubs in the front we found massive hinges on the entryway arch. We later discovered that this foyer was once open to the elements, the hinges held two huge iron gates… the doors on the North and South Towers were used as the actual entrances and that at some point, this stained glass was created for the new entry (and had not been original to a wooden doorway as we had previously thought).